"Conscience, the torturer of the soul unseen, Your crimes, and your own conscience be your hell." But her keen reproaches here are mere whispers compared with the thundering voice in which she will speak hereafter. Here her voice is often drowned, and her reproaches stifled. Here she is often lulled asleep by opiates. But she will not always sleep on the myrtle bed. In the future state the sinner will have no means of silencing her voice; and she will speak without interruption or intermission. She will be no longer seared or blinded, but will see every thing in the clear light of eternity; and the voice of her accusations will be more painful than the sting of a scorpion. How painful have been the reproaches of the sinner's conscience on his dying bed! The guilt, the fear, the horror which appeared in his countenance-his bitter regret, and the awful forebodings of endless misery which seemed to prey upon his mind, have wrung with anguish the hearts of all who surrounded his bedside. I have been told by persons on a dying bed that the pains of their body were extreme, but that their bodily sufferings were nothing in comparison to the anguish of their souls. And a dying infidel has been known to exclaim, "Sure there is a God, for nothing less than Omnipotence could inflict what I now feel!" What then must be the pangs inflicted by the reproaches of conscience in eternity? 6. Another ingredient in that cup which will be the future portion of the wicked is the power of recognition. As we have. satisfactory evidence that the happiness of departed saints consists partly in the knowledge which they have of each other's blessedness, so we have sufficient reason to conclude that the misery of hell consists partly in the knowledge which lost souls have of each others doom. The man who employed his talents in ridiculing others because they were serious, and thus occasioned them to stifle their serious impressions; who allured the thoughtless and inexperienced into scenes of mirth and dissipation; or tempted them to become deistical or profane; or who induced them to embrace pernicious and fatal errors in principle and in practice, may find when it is too late to repent his folly, that these victims whom he has ridiculed and deceived, are his tormenters. The wailings of those deluded, unhappy beings, and their angry curses that they will heap upon the instruments of their ruin, will add a pang to the keenness of that anguish which he will be called to endure. The frowns and bitter accusations of companions in woe will fill up the measure of his sorrows. No doubt those who have been leaders in wickedness, and have by precept or example led others to become infidel in sentiment and profligate and impious in practice, and thus ruined them for time and eternity, will be rendered most miserable by the reproaches and bitter accusations of those whom they have ruined. No doubt many admired writers who have already passed into the unseen world, would wish to come back and publish a recantation of their sceptical, heretical, and licentious works. No doubt many play-actors would desire the opportunity on earth of acting a different part on the stage from that by which they inflamed the unhallowed passions and corrupted the morals of mankind. No doubt many miniature painters would wish to come back and give a different coloring to those obscene pictures by which they have ruined many souls. No doubt many false teachers would now be willing to come back and publish and defend a more orthordox creed than that which they once preached. For men will be accountable for all the effects of their conduct, however widely they may spread, and however disastrous may be their consequences. Oh! how great will be the agony of that despair when the poor outcasts from the divine favor shall hear the groans and shrieks and lamentations of their wretched companions in woe. Companions in sin must be sharers in punishment as tares bound in bundles for the flames. As heaven is represented as a social state, and as much of the bliss of glorified saints will result from social intercourse, so the society of the wicked will be an aggravation of their misery. And as the tares bound in bundles and burned in that capacity, will increase the fury of the flame that shall consume each individual tare, so must the wicked be a torment to each other in a future state. O "Lord gather not my soul with sinners," but let it be bound in "the bundle of life with the Lord!" 7. Once more.. Another constituent part of future punishment is the wrath of God fastening upon a guilty conscience. What must it be to see yourselves surrounded by a just and holy God and to meet his piercing, withering glance, fixed upon you wherever you turn your eye! How dreadful to see the eternal God, the Sovreign of the universe, who has been through time loading you with his favors, for which you have been ungrateful, and which you have devoted to the vilest purposes, now regarding you with severe displeasure. O this will be indeed a fire to the soul that shall burn to the lowest hell! a fire that will be felt in all the faculties of the soul, when a God of inflexible justice shall avenge himself, his law, his Son, his Spirit, and his covenant, on all the despisers of the riches of his grace. Oh! it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! Who of us, my hearers, can stand before the indignation of the Almighty, whose anger burns to the lowest hell? The anguish of this flame is as much greater than that of any material fire as the Creator is superior to the creature. Such I conceive to be the principal ingredients in the future cup of the wicked. O then, my friends, be fearful lest after all that has been said and done, you should by lamentable experience find that your passions and desires, your understanding, your consciousness of loss, your reflections, the reproaches of your conscience, the recognition of your companions in guilt, and the wrath of a holy and just God should constitute a worm that will feed on your souls forever, and be a fire in your breasts that shall never be quenched. Do you hope for future happiness? The foundation of this is substantially the same as that which forms the basis of happiness in this world. As in the present life there are certain endowments necessary for securing substantial happiness, so there are certain moral qualifications indispensably requisite in order to prepare us J* for the employments and bliss of the life to come. For it is a decree of Heaven-founded on the moral laws which govern the universe, which, like the law of the Medes and Persians, cannot be changed that, "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." The foundation of future felicity must be laid in "repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." We must be convinced of our inherent depravity as the descendants of the first Adam; of the guilt and demerit of our offences; of the spotless purity and infinite rectitude of that Being whom we have offended; and of the awful consequences of unrepentant guilt. We must view the extent and purity of the divine law. We must renounce all hope of justification before God, by our works, and must receive with humility and gratitude that full and free salvation which is exhibited in the gospel, and must "behold" by an eye of faith "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." We must depend alone on the aid of the Spirit to enable us to subdue the corrupt propensities of our natures, to renew our souls after the Divine image, and to inspire us to abound in all those fruits of righteousness which are to the praise and glory of God. And you must give all diligence to make your calling and election sure, "by adding to your faith, courage; and to courage, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, the love of the brethren; and to love of the brethren, love to all men. And thus there shall be richly ministered to you an entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." 99* This may the Lord dispose you to do; and to his name be all the glory, world without end. Amen. * 2 Pet. i. 5-7, 11-Macknight's Translation. LECTURE VI. ON THE METHODS BY WHICH MODERN OBJECTORS TO THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT, EVADE THE FORCE OF SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY RESPECTING THAT SUBJECT. Jeremiah xxiii: 16, 17.-" Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Hearken * not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you; they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. They say unto them that despise me, The Lord hath said ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you." ON former occasions, I have stated the proofs of endless punishment. If you have fully examined these proofs, and weighed them as on a dying pillow, you are, I think, reduced to this alternative; either to admit the doctrine we have endeavored to establish, or to reject the authority of the Bible. The Scriptures, as we have already shown, do, in a variety of instances, and in the most unequivocal manner, assert the endless punishment of the wicked. Now, if they do at the same time assert the contrary, they must be regarded as a medley of absurdity and contradiction, and ought to be rejected as an unsafe guide in matters of faith and practice. A book, which is calculated in its nature and tendency to lead men |